Whiskey and Condolences
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: After the group kills a group of hunters who took Stefan, they discover the burned remains of a vampire and decide it must be Stefan. Damon doesn't know how to cope without his brother and furiously pushes everybody away. Katherine reminds him that she knew Stefan too and the two share a drink and talk but can Damon really accept that Stefan is dead?


**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

**This fic is set at some point in the future (not the very far future, they all still live in Mystic Falls)**

As soon as the last hunter fell to the ground dead at Caroline's feet, they began to search the camp for signs of any surviving hunters, and to find out where they'd put Stefan. Damon almost rolled his eyes at the thought of his brother, the hunters had been in town for almost three weeks now, it was inevitable that they were going to capture anybody and they all knew it wasn't going to be one of the originals. Previous experience dictated that it was going to be either Stefan or Caroline. Damon smirked, already coming up with taunts for Stefan.

Damon was searching though one of the older trailers, it was half rusted and he was surprised that it was still running, inside there were several unwashed dishes on the small counter and a pile of dirty clothes in the corner, other than this there was nothing to find. He sighed in irritation and turned to move on to the next trailer only to find his path blocked by Caroline standing in the doorway.

He raised an eyebrow at the younger vampire, "you're not a ghost, Barbie, I can't just walk through you."

"Damon... I" She paused as her voice cracked slightly, she took a breath and looked back up at him.

"We didn't find him but we found some... remains... Klaus said they were from a vampire."

"So what are you saying, Blondie?" he advanced towards her angrily. "They've taken him somewhere else?"

"We found this too." Klaus appeared behind Caroline and opened his palm to reveal a heavy, gaudy silver ring- Stefan's daylight ring.

Damon reached forwards and snatched it from the hybrid's hand, "so what? This doesn't prove anything, like I said; they could have just taken him somewhere else. One of the hunters probably took this because they thought they could sell it for something."

"Damon," Caroline said softly, "they're all dead, there's nobody to have taken him anywhere else and as far as we know, they didn't take any other vampires. There's nobody else that those..." she trailed off with a grimace, "that... _That _could have been. It was Stefan. I'm so sorry."

"Klaus," she addressed the blonde, "will you go and get Elena, please?" She asked after a few minutes of Damon standing immobile and unresponsive.

Damon heard her, at any other time he would have laughed at Klaus- the big bad hybrid, taking orders from a new vampire without hesitation. He barely registered what was going on around him and the voices around him began to blur into a continuous white noise.

The next thing he was aware of he was sitting on one of the leather sofas in his living room, with Elena on one side of him and Jeremy on the other and with no memory of leaving the campsite.

"Here." He looked up and saw Caroline standing in front of him holding out a glass of whiskey, he took it from her and threw it back, enjoying the burn as it slid down his throat.

Elena clasped his other hand tightly and started at him tearfully, "I'm so sorry, Damon, we all are."

Damon smirked, "well it was either going to be Stefan or Blondie over there, I guess she just got lucky this week."

"That's not funny!" Elena insisted, glaring at him in disbelief.

"It's a little funny. Stefan liked to act like a saint and now he's died like one- burned to a crisp."

"Damon, you're just upset-" Caroline tried to reason before he cut her off.

"The only thing I'm upset about is that it wasn't you, I mean it should have been. Didn't your dad try to barbeque you a couple of years ago? Maybe you should have just let him."

"You're mad, I get it, but me dying back then wouldn't change anything- Stefan would still be dead." She pointed out, attempting to make the older vampire see reason.

"No, I know it wouldn't change anything, but it _would_ mean that two of the most irritating people on the planet would be dead instead of just the one." He smiled nastily and Caroline fought the urge to slap him.

"I'm going to go home, obviously me being here isn't helping things."

"Tell Klaus I said hi." The blonde girl whirled around to face him, "oh don't look like that Barbie, we all know what you two have been getting up to for the past two months. Apparently your taste has declined since we were together."

"I don't think you can count an old man compelling a teenage girl into being his girlfriend as us being _together._" She informed him scathingly before leaving the house swiftly.

"I know you didn't mean any of that." Elena said. "You're just hurt, so you're doing what you always do and pushing everybody away."

"You don't know anything, Elena." He intoned calmly. "As much as you like to pretend to yourself otherwise, you didn't know my brother and you don't know me, so why don't you just leave." He suggested coldly, ignoring the look of hurt that flashed across the doppelganger's face.

"No." She replied stubbornly.

"Leave." He insisted, his tone harder.

"No."

"Get out!" He snapped, his fangs descending viciously and his face twisting hideously.

She shook her head and wiped at the tears that spilled from her big brown eyes.

"Fine." He snarled, before getting up quicker than either of the Gilbert's anticipated, smashing his tumbler against the coffee table and stabbing the remaining glass furiously into Jeremy's thigh. The human shouted out in pain and grasped his leg. Blood spilled from the wound and coursed over Jeremy's hands, dripping onto the old wooden floor and pooling there.

"Jeremy!" Elena cried, running to her brother, then biting her wrist quickly and allowing him to drink from her until his wound was healed.

"Come on, Jeremy," she ordered, grabbing his arm and practically dragging him from the house. She turned back once to gaze at Damon for a long moment before finally leaving and shutting the door behind her. Damon was suddenly very aware of how large the house was.

That night Damon emptied all the liquor cabinets, all the beer in the fridge and all the blood in the basement. He tore through the house, ripping down any traces of Stefan, any portraits on the wall were pulled down and hurled to the ground, and any of his books were shredded or burned. Damon had worked his way through the house until he came upon Stefan's bedroom and he stood in the doorway for a long moment, looking over all of his brother's possessions, all of the things that had been important to Stefan and all of the things that he'd never see again. Damon didn't even fully remember doing it, he just remembered being filled with what felt like a bottomless fury, but the room was now wrecked- cabinets had been upturned and lay splintered on the floor, candles had been broken so the room was now littered with broken pieces of pale wax, Stefan's diaries had been ripped apart, his picture frames had been smashed and all of his clothes had been pulled from the wardrobe and were strewn around the room.

He was sat on the bed; his head leaned lazily against the headboard, drinking what was left of the whiskey.

"Well don't you look miserable?" A voice came from the doorway; he sat up and glanced blurrily at the figure. "Elena?"

"Try again and here's a hint- I'm less boring," Katherine announced herself, then proceeded to stroll over to the bed and sit down next to him and take a swig from the last bottle.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, his head clearing up slightly.

"I heard what happened to Stefan."

"And you thought that I'd want you here to comfort me?" He demanded incredulously.

"Yes." She answered without hesitation.

"I hate you." He reminded her.

"That's a lie and we both know it."

"Fine, strongly dislike then."

"Even if that's true, you want me here because I'm the only person left alive who knows Stefan nearly as well as you do."

He swivelled his head to watch her expression carefully, he saw the sincerity there.

"I guess that's true, I mean you did stalk him for a century and a half."

She nodded once and they slipped into silence for a while, it was comfortable, almost pleasant.

"So, how come you're all alone? What could you have possibly done to drive everyone away in less than twenty four hours?" Katherine asked eventually.

"I insulted Blondie, who doesn't like me anyway so she left pretty quickly, Elena was more... difficult."

"You didn't kill her did you?"

"No."

"Oh," she sounded disappointed, "did you kill little Gilbert?"

"No, that's your job. I just stabbed him in the leg."

"So that's why there was blood on the floor downstairs. I'm not going to lie; I had hoped that there would be a more interesting story behind that but..." She trailed off and took another deep drink from the bottle.

"It's going to be okay." She said quietly.

"What?"

"They'll come back. If they didn't really care about you, they wouldn't have stuck around this long."

"Wow, Katherine Pierce is comforting me- my life truly has sunk to pathetic levels." He tried to make a joke but his voice cracked sharply on the last word and she met his eyes. "I don't know what to do now." He admitted, "even when I hated him, he was my brother and he was just... he was always there and now..." He took a breath and continued. "I don't know how to deal with him being gone."

"You've lost people before, all vampires have." She reminded him.

"Yeah but this was _Stefan_." At the expression on her face he continued, "my mother died when I was nine and my dad when I was twenty four, you're parents are supposed to die- maybe not until you're grown up and have your own kids but they're supposed to die, they're not supposed to outlive you. Your brothers and sisters though- they are supposed to be around forever to grow old with you and talk about the good old days."

"You and Stefan had a better run than most."

"The Mikaelsons had a thousand years."

"Yeah, but two died before they were even vampires and one was locked in a box for nine hundred years, do you really want to start envying the Originals?"

Damon sighed and pulled the bottle back from her and took a huge gulp to avoid answering.

"I know that you loved him, Damon. Even when you hated him, and even if you wouldn't admit it, and he knew it too." She consoled him.

Damon couldn't bring himself to admit it but he hoped so, he didn't want to believe that Stefan died not knowing.

They sat for a while longer, mainly in a comfortable silence, not needing to fill it with mindless rambling until Katherine suddenly tensed and sat upright.

"What?" Damon asked.

"Did you hear that?"

"Obviously not."

"It sounded like somebody coming down the driveway."

"At this time? That's weird."

"I know- that's why I mentioned it. Alcohol really does kill your brain cells." She muttered to herself with a roll of her eyes.

They both heard it when the door swung open and knocked into the wall of the entryway gently. They turned to one another and nodded in agreement. As quietly as they were able they got to their feet and descended down the stairs into the large living room of the house.

The figure standing in the centre of the room was tall and male but other features were difficult to discern through the thick layer of earth and grime that coated him.

"There's no point trying to sneak up on me- you two are drunk enough that you've been making a lot of noise on the way downstairs." Stefan's voice informed them.

"Stefan, what are you doing here?" Damon inquired, realising even as he said it what a ridiculous question it was.

"You thought I was dead?" Stefan raised an eyebrow at the apparent stupidity of that.

"We found a charred corpse and your daylight ring, what were we supposed to think?" Damon defended himself.

"How did you escape?" Katherine questioned.

"After spending the afternoon being riddled with wooden bullets I was weak so they took my ring and led me out into the woods to burn in the sun. I started to but then they heard the camp being attacked and they panicked and ran. They left me behind and I had to dig myself into the ground to get out of the sun."

"Where are the hunters now?" Damon asked, he was interested in finding what remained of the group who had taken and tried to kill his brother.

"I found them and took care of them before coming back here." Stefan replied, not needing to explain how he _took care_ of the men who tortured and tried to execute him. "Where is everybody?" He looked around, surprised that it was just the three of them in the house.

Damon made no move to reply, so Katherine intervened. "Damon managed, in less than twenty four hours no less, to drive them all away." She almost sounded impressed.

"Thanks, Katherine. Did I tell you how glad I was to have you with me?" His voice bled sarcasm and the older vampire smirked at him in response.

Stefan chuckled, "you never cease to amaze me, Damon- your charm has only increased over the years."

"Shut up, I was just upset because I suspected you'd be coming back and I'd have to be stuck with you again."

"Alright," Stefan held his hands up in mock surrender, "but is there a reason you've destroyed literally everything belonging to me in this room?"

"Not just in here, in your room too." Damon informed him with a grin.

"I really hate you."

"Right back at you."

"I forgot how dysfunctional you two are- it's sexy." Katherine announced casually.

"Why thank you, Katherine for that both uncomfortable and inappropriate comment." Stefan sarcastically thanked the doppelganger. She laughed once and passed him what was left of the bottle of whiskey.

**The end.**

**I'm not really sure whether I like the idea of Katherine being human yet so I just decided to keep her a vampire for this and I wrote it that the Originals are all still living in Mystic Falls. I also said that she was the person who knew Stefan best after Damon since most of the other main characters have only known him for two years and Lexi's dead. To be clear, Damon didn't really mean the cruel things he said to Elena.**

**If anyone's curious, the burned body they found was another vampire, but it wasn't somebody that any of the characters knew so that's why nobody asked about them.**

**The vampires on vampire diaries have never buried themselves that I remember but I'm going on the assumption that if they were desperate they could.**

**I just couldn't get rid of this idea so I decided to write it- I would never really kill of Stefan.**

**Please review.**


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